Left Brain is the New Right Brain

Are you more Left Brain dominant (logical, analytical, plays it safe) or more Right Brain dominant (passionate, creative, risk taker) in your work?

In general, if you are in IT, chances are you are more Left Brain dominant. If you are in sales or marketing, you are probably more Right Brain dominant.

But when it comes to adopting marketing automation, the left brain is the new right brain, at least for marketers. Being creative, artful and engaging isn’t enough to get your message through all the clutter any more.

Like it or not, we (us marketers) have to start getting (gulp) data-centric. The sad truth is that if your company has been in existence for more than a couple of years, chances are, the quality of your data is awful. I can almost guarantee you that this will severely impact your long-term marketing success.

Even the most expensive marketing automation tools in the world won’t get you results if your message isn’t relevant. You can’t have relevance without good data. You can’t have good data without data standards. You can't have data standards without a process and you can’t have a process without the left brain.

To illustrate, I've created a little graphic that shows how the two brains need to work together in delivering the right message to the right person at the right time. (Notice the double entendre – right person, right brain -- clever eh?)

Marketing automation is definitely a group effort, with both dominant left brainers and right brainers crossing paths and working hand in hand to deliver results.

So fear not right brainers, it’s time to get out of your comfort zone, get technical and embrace data. BTW: There are some great new data tools out there, including Jigsaw and others. Eloqua has a good Data Normalization program that can help as well.

BTW: If you are curious as to whether you are left or right brain dominant, take this interesting little test.

P.S. If the test shows you with equal dominance on both sides, you’re one of us :)

Updated 5-8-12
Visit my brand new website and learn more about marketing automation

Steve Kellogg
-Demand Generation/Marketing Automation Consultant, Astadia
-Eloqua Certified Marketing Best Practices Consultant

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